The coming winter also showed its face for the first time Sunday, unleashing a torrential, though brief, downpour over San Francisco. Good thing it didn't last too long -- some of the streets here on Treasure Island showed signs of flooding.

It seems that all the forces of nature work in sync with one another: the day I decided to take it easy was the same day I got struck by a cold and rain erupted from the skies.

-Gabe

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The committee carried various names at various times, but it is most widely remembered as the Senate Un-American Activities Committee, which operated from about 1940 to 1971. It was finally disbanded -- much to the dismay of former Gov. Ronald Reagan -- after an angry Senate leader discovered that he had been a subject of an investigation.

The committee was set up, at least in part, to investigate the alleged infiltration of communists into California's welfare and organized labor systems, but before long it broadened its activities to root out communists throughout California society. It also investigated such groups as the Ku Klux Klan and the Nazis, but its principal target was the perceived influence of international communism on California.

The committee's hearings had been covered by the press, but its files -- especially its confidential investigative files -- remained secret, buried in the state archives.

Last week, however, a Sacramento court ruled in favor of a coalition of journalists and ordered the bulk of the material to be disclosed. This week, the court's decision is scheduled to be put into effect when state authorities release some 66 volumes of documents, mostly hearing transcripts and exhibits, that cover the committee's proceedings between 1941 and 1958.

The most sensitive information will not be made public; the Senate, rightfully, said disclosing such material would constitute an invasion of privacy.

But the questions of the committee members, the responses of the witnesses, the topics of investigation, the committee's votes, the intensity of the politics of the time -- it's all there.

It's arguable whether there is any news value in any of this. But surely, historians will find nuggets of information in the thousands of pages of documents, and the appearance of people who later became well-known figures -- Earl Warren and Sam Yorty, to name just two -- makes fascinating reading for political junkies.

It's difficult to recall the political climate of 40 and 50 years ago in California, and the concerns that consumed the state at that time. The fear of Soviet Russia, the concern that communists had infiltrated honored institutions, the notion that the world existed at the edge of a nuclear abyss -- all were part of the popular viscera of the day.

But the committee's documents, like an old black-and-white movie, bring back a sense of the era.

Some intriguing questions: The committee operated until 1971, but why are there no documents available after 1958? Were they destroyed or stolen? If so, by whom?

We probably will never know these answers.

This is to point out several factual errors in your article, coming from someone who covered Proposition 13 before and after the fact. It was then-State Treasurer Jesse Unruh who declared it to be an "obscene surplus," fueling the Prop 13 battle. Local bond issues had to have two-thirds votes prior to Prop 13. Finally, Gray Davis would not have the final word on any alteration of Prop 13. It could be changed only by constitutional amendment, either one placed on the ballot by the Legislature (requiring a two-thirds vote of the Legislature) or by initiative. Since Republicans (and many Democrats) would not vote to alter Prop 13, given its continued popularity in the polls, it could be done only by initiative. Of course, mere legislation to alter the state-local government fiscal relationship would need the governor's signature, but that could not change the fundamental provisions of Prop 13, either the one percent limit on taxes, the two percent annual escalation of values or its application to residential and nonresidential property.

- Daniel Walters
Sacramento Bee

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